The road to Utopia is the road to Hell. — Communism and socialism are the opiates of the intelligentsia. — The left, in its eternal and futile quest for "equality", is more than willing to abolish liberty and sunder fraternity.

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The Cocoon Age

“Ingenius Americanus” has devised and perfected the greatest get-rich-quick scheme since the chain letter and multi-level marketing: When something bad happens to you, sue. Sue someone, anyone, even if your misfortune is plain old bad luck or the result of your own stupidity.

There’s nothing new about this game of buck-passing-buck-grabbing. It became a bigtime sport in the 1970s with the advent of product-liability suits. And it hasn’t let up.

There were some doozies in the ’70s. Item: A small machine-tool company was sued by a workman who lost three fingers while using (or misusing) its product, even though the machine had been rebuilt at least once and had changed hands four times. Item: Another machinery manufacturer lost a case involving its 33-year-old table saw, although the owner of the machine admitted he knew it was dangerous and wouldn’t have used the guard if it had had one.

Recent years have brought us the judgment in favor of a woman who burned herself with hot coffee (what did she expect it was?) dispensed by a fast-food chain, and the award of millions (millions!) of dollars to the purchaser of a new BMW who discovered that its paint job was not pristine.

Why not buy an unrestored 1930 Ford and try to keep up with traffic on the Washington Beltway? (If you haven’t tried it, don’t — unless you live for masochistic thrills.) Then, when you have suffered a severe dislocation of the cervical vertebrae (at best) because the 30-ton rig behind you had no place to go but up your tail pipe, sue the Ford Motor Company because its product wasn’t up to mission impossible.

And so the absurdities roll on in this new age — this “Cocoon Age” — when almost everyone seems to crave cradle-to-grave protection from the merest change in the weather. Even criminals who have been injured while perpetrating crimes have had the gall to sue police departments and victims.

If such nonsense continues its cancerous spread through our legal system, a court somewhere in this land will someday entertain a suit against the Almighty. The complaint? He permitted the serpent to tempt our first ancestors, thus depriving us of the benefits of life in Eden. Worse, through careful judge-shopping, there will be a summary judgment for the plaintiff because the Defendant did not deign to respond. That’ll be the end of that nonsense.

Comments & Correspondence

Comments close 30 days after the publication of a post. If a post is no longer open for comment, or if you prefer to communicate privately, you may e-mail me at the Germanic nickname for Friedrich followed by the last name of the great Austrian economist and Nobel laureate whose first name is Friedrich followed by the 3rd and 4th digits of his birth year followed by the usual typographic symbol followed by the domain and extension for Google’s e-mail service — all run together.

If you submit a comment or suggestion by e-mail, I may acknowledge it or use it on this blog. But I may paraphrase what you say or edit it for the sake of concision, clarity, coherence, or brevity. I will not use your name unless you specifically authorize me to do so. Even then, I will put quotation marks around your name unless I am certain of your identity.

On Liberty and Libertarianism

What is liberty? It is peaceful, willing coexistence and its concomitant: beneficially cooperative behavior.

John Stuart Mill opined that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." But who determines whether an act is harmful or harmless? Acts deemed harmless by an individual are not harmless if they subvert the societal bonds of trust and self-restraint upon which liberty itself depends.

Which is not to say that all social regimes are regimes of liberty. Liberty requires voice -- the freedom to dissent -- and exit -- the freedom to choose one's neighbors and associates. Voice and exit depend, in turn, on the rule of law under a minimal state.

Liberty, because it is a social phenomenon and not an innate condition of humanity, must be won and preserved by an unflinching defense of a polity that fosters liberty through its norms, and the swift and certain administration of justice within that polity. The governments in and of the United States have long since ceased to foster liberty, but most Americans are captives in their own land and have no choice but to strive for the restoration of liberty, or something closer to it.

Who can restore liberty? Certainly not the self-proclaimed libertarians who are fixated on Mill's empty harm principle and align with the left on social norms. Traditional (i.e., Burkean) conservatism fosters the preservation and adherence of beneficial norms (e.g., the last six of the Ten Commandments). Thus, by necessity, the only true libertarianism is found in traditional conservatism. I am a traditional conservative, which makes me a libertarian -- a true one.

Notes about Usage

“State” (with a capital “S”) refers to one of the United States, and “States” refers to two or more of them. “State” and “States,” thus used, are proper nouns because they refer to a unique entity or entities: one or more of the United States, the union of which, under the terms and conditions stated in the Constitution, is the raison d’être for the nation. I reserve the uncapitalized word “state” for a government, or hierarchy of them, which exerts a monopoly of force within its boundaries.

Marriage, in the Western tradition, predates the state and legitimates the union of one man and one woman. As such, it is an institution that is vital to civil society and therefore to the enjoyment of liberty. The recognition of a more-or-less permanent homosexual pairing as a kind of marriage is both ill-advised and illegitimate. Such an arrangement is therefore a “marriage” (in quotation marks) or, more accurately, a homosexual cohabitation contract (HCC).

The words “liberal”, “progressive”, and their variants are usually enclosed in quotation marks (sneer quotes) because they refer to persons and movements whose statist policies are, in fact, destructive of liberty and progress. I sometimes italicize the words, just to reduce visual clutter.

I have reverted to the British style of punctuating in-line quotations, which I followed 40 years ago when I published a weekly newspaper. The British style is to enclose within quotation marks only (a) the punctuation that appears in quoted text or (b) the title of a work (e.g., a blog post) that is usually placed within quotation marks.

I have reverted because of the confusion and unsightliness caused by the American style. It calls for the placement of periods and commas within quotation marks, even if the periods and commas don’t occur in the quoted material or title. Also, if there is a question mark at the end of quoted material, it replaces the comma or period that might otherwise be placed there.

If I had continued to follow American style, I would have ended a sentence in a recent post with this:

What a hodge-podge. There’s no comma between the first two entries, and the sentence ends with an inappropriate question mark. With two titles ending in question marks, there was no way for me to avoid a series in which a comma is lacking. I could have avoided the sentence-ending question mark by recasting the list, but the items are listed chronologically, which is how they should be read.

This not only eliminates the hodge-podge, but is also more logical and accurate. All items are separated by commas, commas aren’t displaced by question marks, and the declarative sentence ends with a period instead of a question mark.